Tag Archives: nation-state actors

On the 16th July, the Department of Justice indicted 12 Russian nationals for their role in the cyber operations against the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). It was the latest in a series of private sector and government publications that provide proof tying Russian hackers to the breaches of Democrat Party institutions and the theft of confidential information.

The State of Israel has developed exceptional cyber capabilities that surpass all other nations within the MENA region. In January 2017, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel had become one of the top five global cyber powers. Israel conducts covert cyber operations that are strictly classified and rarely formally acknowledged. So, beyond the infamous Stuxnet virus, what do publicly available sources reveal about state-sponsored hackers within Israel?

If you examine the history of cyber breaches, you will find that the most newsworthy are usually attributed to Russia, China, Iran, and more recently North Korea. This may, or may not be true, but to echo the words of Eugene Kaspersky: the reality is that everyone hacks everyone. Friends attack foes, but friends also attack friends… secretly of course.

On 7th December 1941, a surprise raid was launched by the Imperial Japanese naval air force against the United States Pacific fleet while at anchor in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This devastating attack formally precipitated the entry of the United States into World War Two, shaping the course of history. A cataclysmic event of comparable magnitude has been anticipated within the cyber domain for more than two decades, encapsulated by the analogy: “Cyber Pearl Harbor”.

It may seem to some that China and America are experiencing a rapprochement of sorts in the cyber realm. Compared to previous years, today there are are markedly fewer headlines about breaches of American public and private institutions by the hands of Chinese hackers. Overall, there are fewer indictments being thrown at members of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the level of political and economic sanctions being prepared against Chinese organisations and individuals has fallen since 2014/2015.

There is a general consensus that Russia interfered in the 2016 US Presidential Elections. According to the US intelligence community, it has been assessed with ‘high confidence’ that Russia used nation state proxy groups to influence the outcome of the presidential election in favour of Donald Trump.

The “problem of attribution” in the context of Cyber is not a new one, but it receives a relatively small share of coverage. When a high-profile breach is attributed to nation-state actors, the focus is often on the potential motivations and implications of the attack.